Howie Roseman

There is ample time for the Eagles and LeSean McCoy to agree on a contract extension, with 74 days left until the start of training camp. But is July 25 - the day veterans are to report to Lehigh - really a deadline or an arbitrary date in negotiations? If McCoy plans on holding out, then yes, it would be a deadline of sorts, although the Eagles may not view it that way. The Pro Bowl running back has one year left on his contract and the team may consider that all the leverage it needs to get him into camp on time.

THE GENERAL consensus of folks outside the walls of One NovaCare Way in January was that the Eagles' two biggest offseason fix-it jobs were linebacker and safety. In a mild upset, the folks inside the walls of One NovaCare Way actually agreed with the folks outside the walls on one of those two things. After years of getting by at linebacker with duct tape and mid- and late-round picks, the Eagles have been very aggressive in trying to upgrade the position, trading for two-time Pro Bowl middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans in late March, and then selecting their likely season-opening starting strongside linebacker, Mychal Kendricks, in the second round of the draft last month.

Fresh out of Fordham Law School a mere 10 years ago, Howie Roseman showed up at Veterans Stadium ready for the first day of his Eagles internship. He felt as high as a first-round draft choice. "I come in, I'm wearing a shirt and tie - I'm in the National Football League," Roseman said. Roseman reported to Joe Banner, the Eagles' president, who had hired him to concentrate on salary cap issues. Right away, Roseman had a question for his new boss: "Where do I sit?" Banner told Roseman the truth.

Just because the draft is over, that doesn't mean that Howie Roseman can go on vacation. In the midst of one of the busiest Eagles off-seasons in recent memory - 39 new faces have been added - the general manager said Tuesday that there is always time to acquire more players, even if most of the 2010 roster is in place. "We discussed this all along," Roseman said. "We don't play until September. There's opportunity at every position to keep getting better. But we do feel comfortable with what we have.

The Eagles still haven't announced the firing of vice president of player personnel Jason Licht, but they did officially replace him yesterday by hiring from within. Howie Roseman, previously the vice president of football administration and a key player in working on the team's salary cap, will now move to the personnel department and assume Licht's former title. In addition to that move, the Eagles also extended the contract of general manager Tom Heckert through the 2011 season.

THE FASTEST, niftiest receiver at the Eagles' rookie camp was Demaris Johnson. Johnson, an explosive 5-7, 170, looks like he might be able to run away from anything, and maybe he once thought he could. But there is no running away from security cameras, or from a felony embezzlement charge, the NCAA's all-time all-purpose yards leader (7,796) and kickoff yards leader (3,417) discovered last August, just before his senior season at Tulsa was set to commence. Johnson ended up going undrafted last month.

AFTER GOING undrafted, Syracuse safety Phillip Thomas signed with the Eagles. Then people started asking him about signing with the Redskins. Reporters who covered the Eagles were queried by fans who were sure Thomas was signing in Washington. Eagles officials insisted they had signed him. At Eagles rookie camp this weekend, Thomas definitely was on the field, wearing a white No. 45 jersey. It didn't seem likely he also was finding time to participate in Washington workouts.

HE STEPPED UP on the stage for his press conference, and gave his coach a playful pat on the back, and you could not have smacked the smile off LeSean McCoy's face if you had tried. On the day he got paid, signing a 5-year contract extension worth $45 million overall and $20.765 million guaranteed, the Eagles' elite running back admitted that his dominant emotion might just have been relief. "It feels good just to wake up tomorrow and go to work knowing that the deal is done and it's over with," McCoy said.

What a difference a few months make. After a toxic 2011, Andy Reid and the Eagles management have restored a sense of optimism and hope around their team. Even the loudest Reid critic should be impressed with what the Eagles have done the last two months, including the draft that just unfolded. "It's a positive thing. When you're around the team right now you feel that," Reid said Saturday, wearing a signature Hawaiian shirt. "I think they're excited to get going. " For anyone else it would be a bit early for short-sleeves with a tropical motif, but as the weather warms and the Eagles' barren January fades in the distance, the team once again looks great in the offseason.

TRENT EDWARDS wasn't surprised to see the Eagles grab a quarterback in the third round of the NFL draft, even though the addition of Nick Foles makes it much harder to chart Edwards' path to a roster spot. "I knew that kind of going in — anywhere I would have signed, you're going to have to compete," Edwards said recently, after a morning devoted to the Birds' offseason conditioning program, which included Edwards throwing to receivers under the watchful eyes of quarterbacks coach Doug Pederson.

HE STEPPED UP on the stage for his press conference, and gave his coach a playful pat on the back, and you could not have smacked the smile off LeSean McCoy's face if you had tried. On the day he got paid, signing a 5-year contract extension worth $45 million overall and $20.765 million guaranteed, the Eagles' elite running back admitted that his dominant emotion might just have been relief. "It feels good just to wake up tomorrow and go to work knowing that the deal is done and it's over with," McCoy said.

THE GENERAL consensus of folks outside the walls of One NovaCare Way in January was that the Eagles' two biggest offseason fix-it jobs were linebacker and safety. In a mild upset, the folks inside the walls of One NovaCare Way actually agreed with the folks outside the walls on one of those two things. After years of getting by at linebacker with duct tape and mid- and late-round picks, the Eagles have been very aggressive in trying to upgrade the position, trading for two-time Pro Bowl middle linebacker DeMeco Ryans in late March, and then selecting their likely season-opening starting strongside linebacker, Mychal Kendricks, in the second round of the draft last month.

THE FASTEST, niftiest receiver at the Eagles' rookie camp was Demaris Johnson. Johnson, an explosive 5-7, 170, looks like he might be able to run away from anything, and maybe he once thought he could. But there is no running away from security cameras, or from a felony embezzlement charge, the NCAA's all-time all-purpose yards leader (7,796) and kickoff yards leader (3,417) discovered last August, just before his senior season at Tulsa was set to commence. Johnson ended up going undrafted last month.

AFTER GOING undrafted, Syracuse safety Phillip Thomas signed with the Eagles. Then people started asking him about signing with the Redskins. Reporters who covered the Eagles were queried by fans who were sure Thomas was signing in Washington. Eagles officials insisted they had signed him. At Eagles rookie camp this weekend, Thomas definitely was on the field, wearing a white No. 45 jersey. It didn't seem likely he also was finding time to participate in Washington workouts.

There is ample time for the Eagles and LeSean McCoy to agree on a contract extension, with 74 days left until the start of training camp. But is July 25 - the day veterans are to report to Lehigh - really a deadline or an arbitrary date in negotiations? If McCoy plans on holding out, then yes, it would be a deadline of sorts, although the Eagles may not view it that way. The Pro Bowl running back has one year left on his contract and the team may consider that all the leverage it needs to get him into camp on time.

For years, NFL teams have called what the Eagles are doing this weekend "rookie camp," but that title was always a bit misleading. This minicamp would indeed be the first gathering of the team's draftees and the undrafted rookies, but the whole team would assemble, for the first time since the end of the previous season; the rookies were just part of the show. The new collective bargaining agreement brought all kinds of changes to the offseason routine. One of them is that there will be no Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson or Trent Cole at the rookie camp that starts Saturday and extends through Monday.

Linebacker Mychal Kendricks signed a four-year contract Monday, becoming the first Eagles draft pick in the fold this year. The remaining eight could have deals in time for the start of minicamp on Saturday, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said. "I don't think it's going to be a long process with most of the players," Roseman said. "I think the players want to get it done. They know that there isn't any incentive to waiting in terms of getting a different deal. " The new collective-bargaining agreement, which established a strict rookie wage scale, has essentially eliminated the need for negotiations.

TRENT EDWARDS wasn't surprised to see the Eagles grab a quarterback in the third round of the NFL draft, even though the addition of Nick Foles makes it much harder to chart Edwards' path to a roster spot. "I knew that kind of going in — anywhere I would have signed, you're going to have to compete," Edwards said recently, after a morning devoted to the Birds' offseason conditioning program, which included Edwards throwing to receivers under the watchful eyes of quarterbacks coach Doug Pederson.

With the draft and initial burst of free agency behind us, we have a pretty good idea of who the Eagles will be bringing into training camp to fight for spots on the regular-season roster. Here, then, is a look at the top position battles to look forward to as rookie minicamps and offseason practices arrive in May and June and lead up to training camp in July.   Linebacker Another summer, another new spin on the position that the Eagles can never quite seem to settle.

THIS TIME, when the draft was over, Howie Roseman felt energized. Not that Roseman had felt like jumping off a bridge following the 2010 and 2011 Eagles drafts, Roseman's first as general manager, but when this selection meet concluded, Roseman thought he and the Eagles had learned from their mistakes, had seen some gambles pay off, and had done everything they could do to make the 2012 offseason and the draft a success. Late Saturday evening, after the Eagles completed their nine selections in the seven-round draft and laid the groundwork for signing their 13 undrafted free agents, Roseman drove home.